Officials consider scaling down plans for jail

Thursday

Some local lawmakers are throwing their support behind an effort to scale back the planned size of a new jail that will replace Lafourche Parish’s three-decades old facility.

Some local lawmakers are throwing their support behind an effort to scale back the planned size of a new jail that will replace Lafourche Parish’s three-decades old facility.

The push to think smaller has been spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, which sent a representative to discuss the subject at Tuesday’s Parish Council meeting. But Sheriff Craig Webre, in an interview Wednesday, is adamant that the parish should stick by a jail consultant’s recommendation that an 894-bed facility is needed.

There is wide consensus among law-enforcement and government officials that the parish needs a new jail to replace its existing one, which suffers from plumbing problems, a lack of bed space and a shortage or rehabilitative programs for inmates. But concrete answers on what kind of facility is needed and where the money will come from have proved elusive.

The current jail has 242 beds and houses as many as 180 inmates in out-of-parish jails daily because of overcrowding, according to Sheriff’s Office figures. Each inmate sent out-of-parish costs taxpayers $24 per day, which means the parish spends $4,390 daily for the 180 out-of-parish inmates.

A 2009 report from independent jail consultant James Rowenhorst predicts that the parish would need an 894-bed jail by 2030. But the ACLU and some local officials have questioned the wisdom of building such a large facility.

Julie Thibodaux, the ACLU’s education and outreach coordinator, does not dispute that Lafourche needs a new and larger facility, but she said the parish can meets its needs with a more modestly-sized jail and by focusing on other ways of handling non-violent offenders with “petty” charges.

Webre said Thibodaux’s argument is “based on a flawed premise.”

“There’s nothing more we can do other than simply unlocking the jail and letting criminals run free,” he said of reducing the jail’s population.

Thibodaux said that building a 900-bed jail would create unnecessary construction and operation costs for the parish.

“These unnecessary economic costs of a too-large jail will inevitably distort criminal-justice policy-making,” Thibodaux says in a report to the council. “Rather than being free to decide on the best ways to keep Lafourche’s citizens safe and to run a justice system that operates fairly and cost-effectively, parish leaders will face pressure to adopt policies that justify the size and expense of the jail.”

She also said that once the parish is locked into financing a large jail, there is no safe way to cut costs.

“Cutting security staffing will increase the risk of violence within the jail and endanger both staff and prisoners. Cutting medical- and mental- health staffing will increase the risk of harm to prisoners and can lead to wrongful deaths,” her report said.

The report adds that the ACLU has sued other local governments “over staffing inadequacies that cause harm to prisoners, inadequate medical- and mental-health care that causes unnecessary suffering and degrading living conditions that jeopardize health and safety.”

Webre disputes that argument and said a larger jail can lease out unused beds to parishes seeking places to place inmates. That money will help defray operating costs, he said.

He also criticized the ACLU and said the group is trying to “misrepresent the need for jail beds so the criminals do run the streets.”

“The ACLU is well-established as the lawbreaker’s friend,” he said. “I can’t think of a single issue where they are ever on the side of law-abiding citizens.”

Marjorie Esman, executive director of the Louisiana ACLU, said Webre’s accusations are nothing new but do not represent what the organization stands for.

“We get accused of that all the time,” she said. “Why would we advocate for something like that? What we want is for everybody to be safe and to ensure the effective use of public resources.”

Some Parish Council members were receptive to the ACLU’s recommendation that they scale back plans.

Councilman Louis Richard, who also sits on the parish’s jail committee, said building a $50 million jail “is not going to fly.”

Councilman Lindel Toups, who chairs the jail committee, said a proposal for a jail that houses 800 or more is “dead,” adding that the parish should focus on one that houses 500 or 600. The jail can be built to accommodate future additions, he said.

Sheriff’s officials have said they are already trying ways to reduce prison population, like the Lafourche Drug Court and electronic-monitoring programs.

The state Legislature passed a law this year allowing the Lafourche Parish jail to run a pilot program that makes some non-violent offenders eligible for house arrest with electronic and in-person monitoring. The Sheriff’s Office must provide a report to the Legislature before the start of the 2012 session on the program’s effectiveness.

Without those measures, Webre said the parish’s jail population “could double.”

Thibodaux said that James Austin, a consultant who specializes in prison-population studies, will make a presentation at the jail committee’s meeting. It’s set for 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Mathews Government Complex, 4876 La. 1.

Austin, along with the ACLU, has worked with New Orleans to reduce the city’s jail population from about 3,200 prisoners to about 1,700 prisoners, Thibodaux said. The ACLU is offering to help Lafourche find grant money to help pay for a prison-population study, she said.

Staff Writer Nate Monroe can be reached at 448-7639 or at nate.monroe@dailycomet.com.

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